Becoming Susan: Finding joy and delight, fulfilment and purpose, fun and meaning in life again

By Susan Holt

You know that feeling when you're on a road trip to somewhere you really love?  You set out and it's so exciting, the music's up high, the laughs are frequent, and it's just a joyous experience of anticipation. 

I'm a radio show host and I have a loving husband and three amazing sons, and yet, for me, the last few years, have looked more like that road trip about five hours in; now, the songs are annoying, the laughs are hard to come by, and in place of anticipation, there is the never-ending question of, 'Are we there yet?'   

If you feel like your excitement, joy, and anticipation of life are lost somewhere in your family, work, or community, you're not alone.  You're also not done yet.  

This story is about finding our way back to the person we want to be. So, let's have a laugh, share some stories, and scream together: 'Are we there yet?!' on the road trip to becoming us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ocean Reeve Publishing
• Release date: May 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922956682

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Ihad a conversation recently that really challenged me.

I’m a working mum. I have a good job doing a fun talk show on radio, syndicated across Australia, with my husband where we laugh a lot. We’ve worked together on radio since 2007. I love my family—a loving husband and three fun-loving, affectionate, kind, rambunctious sons. I love where I live on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, with the beach and mountains nearby and the weather that draws tourists all year-round. Yet, in the midst of it all, I feel like something is missing. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it’s fulfilment. Maybe it’s a sense of purpose. Maybe it’s just the constant longing for more.

The conversation I had was about how mums can often lose confidence after having children, despite having had successful careers. Intelligent, driven women lose that sense of clarity and wholeness. For me, that resonated and made sense of how I’ve been feeling for all too long now.

I wouldn’t change becoming a mum for anything, but I did lose that sense of self and drive to live a life that I get to design, choosing instead to take only those opportunities that come to me. Summing it up, I feel that I’ve had a personal identity crisis.

My life has been designed by chance and not with a clear, consistent, passionate purpose, and it’s time to take back control.

So, now it’s time to take life back to a place where I feel that feeling—the one where I’m okay with me … living purposefully with fulfilment.

The biggest challenge I have is remembering the little lessons along the way in life that point the way. I’ve been privileged to speak to many experts who specialise in mental health, wellbeing, and helping others find their purpose in life. This book is a journey through some life lessons that I’ve discovered along the way, and some I’ve drawn from the wisdom of those around me, all in a bid to create a roadmap back to me.

Will you join me in moving towards a life that fills you with joy and delight, fulfilment and purpose, fun and meaning?

Chapter 1:

JUST DO IT

Somewhere along the way, I’ve started to become aware that the thing I don’t want to do is all too often the thing that makes me feel the best.

Isn’t that just the worst? I mean, I’d like a life where I always want to do the things that are best for me and those around me and where I don’t want to do the wrong things.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the dreaded ‘comfort zone’ works.

I don’t think it’s possible to count the number of times I’ve relearnt this lesson in my life.

I’d love to be the kind of person who learns something and implements it in their life and that’s that. Unfortunately, I’m more of a ‘learn it, do it for a bit, and then forget it’ kind of gal. For this idea to sink in, I have to relearn it frequently, because when there’s something I don’t want to do, I’m good at convincing myself to not do it. It’s one of the great privileges of adulthood to have the choice. Sometimes, I think I’d do a whole lot better in life if someone else just told me what to do, but then that would require me to be more consistently obedient than I probably am.

When it comes to the things we don’t necessarily want to do, there’s the list that is pretty common—exercise, healthy eating, cleaning, and washing. Then there are the opportunities that are presented that make us feel uncomfortable with the thoughts that we’re not the right person, or we’re not skilled enough, or we’ll fail if we try. These are the times when we want to say no purely out of fear. Yet, I have found out the hard way that saying yes when we want to say no in both the big and the little things can stretch our capacity, bring a sense of order and peace, and ultimately, create a pathway to fulfilment.

During the lockdown of the COVID pandemic, a friend of mine reached out and we started walking, once a week, on a Friday morning. We’d meet at 6 am, grab a coffee, and walk for several kilometres. It wasn’t fast, but we’d talk the whole way, and I’d always feel amazing by the time I got home. I looked forward to it as a highlight of every week.

Once the lockdown lifted and life returned to a semblance of normality, both of our routines changed, and we couldn’t meet any more. The result was that, bit by bit, week by week, I was walking less and less until I stopped walking with any kind of regularity.

I’d been seeing a female psychologist for a while, having recognised that stress, anxiety, and depression were rearing their ugly heads in my life. In one of our sessions, I talked about knowing how good walking had made me feel every day, but now, I just wasn’t doing it. At no point did my psychologist give me a solution. Then I realised, it was because the solution was obvious. The way to get up and go walking in the morning is … to get up and go walking in the morning.

My current reality is that I love baked goods, I don’t like exercise, and I’m hit-and-miss on cleaning. Consequently, my weight is higher than ideal, my energy is lower than desired, and my house is, well, inconsistent in tidiness. When I’m in the zone, I’m great at getting it done. I can exercise like a machine, clean like a machine, and eat like someone who eats really well. I’m just not very consistent about being in the zone.

On our radio show, Luke, my co-host—who happens to be my husband—and I spoke with Kate Christie, director and founder of Time Stylers, about changing your life in ninety seconds.¹ The first few seconds are for identifying the goal, the next few seconds are for identifying the barriers, the next are for determining your values, the next for creating a visual image example of what the goal looks like when it’s achieved, and the final few seconds are used to determine the first action step. I think the biggest part of this process is recognising that the things we often want to say no to are actually the things that align well with our values. When we can see the purpose in the action as it aligns with our values, moving from a no to a yes seems easier (not necessarily easy) and also logical.

As an example of putting this process into action, let’s take losing weight.

Step 1: What is the goal? To feel less self-conscious, more comfortable in clothes, healthier, and more energetic.

Step 2: What are the barriers? I love processed/sugar-filled/fried food, and I feel exhausted and overwhelmed all the time. Sometimes, I battle a ‘what’s the point?’ kind of attitude.

Step 3: What do I value? My most relevant value here is family and health. I want to be able to have fun and energy with my young boys and I want to feel good in my body.

Step 4: What does this goal look like when applied to my life? For example, in the summer of (insert appropriate year here!) I will run and play on the beach with my boys and our dog and feel confident in a swimsuit so that I can jump in the water with them.

Step 5: What is the first action step? Move a little more every day as measured by the number of steps that I take. (Remember, this is just a first step. We don’t need to plan out the whole solution here.)

Like most people, if I think too long about something, I’m very capable of finding a reason not to do it. A simple process that can be walked through in a few seconds, like the steps above, can create a clear path to the ultimate goal that is based on living according to my values as opposed to giving in to my fears. Joy and delight, fulfilment and purpose, fun and meaning, are my personal goals.

Let me backtrack a bit. Back at school, and then when I started university, I studied computer science as a subject and spent a whole lot of time on ‘if, then, else’. If x happens, then do y, else do z. I feel like this kind of thinking process, if coded correctly, could serve in turning the right noes into yeses. For example, if I think I should go for a walk, then I should create the opportunity for me to go for a walk, else I am robbed of the energy and health benefits it provides.

By the way, the only reason I studied computer science for a short time is that university study showed up some fundamental failings in my ability to study, even though I’d done well academically at school. Mostly, it was this whole problem that presented itself way back then. I was very good at choosing fun, friends, and frivolity over study and, to be honest, sometimes even showing up to class in the first place was an issue.

One day, I decided it was time to finally do the assignment that was due for computer science and, not owning my own computer at that point—back in the day before smartphones, tablets, and affordable laptops—I headed off to the computer labs to do my work. I walked in to find the room about three-quarters full of students but quickly found a free Apple Mac to sit down at. I pulled out the criteria for the assessment that we had to do, turned on the machine, and stared at the screen. Login—it was asking for a username and password. I stared blankly at the screen for a bit, while my brain raced at a cracking pace, confusing itself trying to remember back to class one. After